Saturday, January 04, 2014

Racing through Paradise: A Book Review

I have been on the road a lot over the past two weeks and heading out again tomorrow afternoon. Afterwards, I hope things settle down a bit. This is a book I read last month and for some reason I felt a need to write my opinions on it. On January 1, I was watching Lasers race in Bank's Channel (North Carolina) only to get home last night to frozen pipes and more snow and extreme cold temperatures being called for early next week (while I'm out of town!). I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and a blessed New Year.

I found myself with a
love/hate relationship with this book. I am a sucker for journeys and
sailing across the Pacific sounds enticing to me. However, there were
times I was so mad at the snobbish attitude of the late William Buckley, I
found myself wondering if I should just toss the book into water and let it
sink. But I kept reading. Early in this book, William Buckley refers
to an article in a California sailing magazine, Latitude 38, in which an author blames two words on the public
perception that boat owners are "idle, indolent, and insolent rich."
The first word was William and the second Buckley. Obviously, Buckley
wasn't impressed and retorted that he doubted the magazine was read even in
latitude 39. He suggested that the author didn't like his life on board
and probably wouldn't like it on shore. (55) Interestingly, from my
point-of-view, Buckley spends the rest of the book confirming (at least for me)
the author's perception of Buckley's sailing adventures: he's rich and expects
his money and his connections with those in power to meet his needs. Yet,
even so, there were parts of the book I enjoyed although I can't imagine that I
would have enjoyed traveling with Buckley when he was alive. For me,
Buckley falls into the category of Paul Theroux, another author I enjoy reading
but don’t always agree with and couldn't imagine having as a traveling partner.

The first third of the
book provides a brief overview of Buckley's sailing adventures on boats he
owned and those he chartered. Such adventures include crossing the Atlantic,
sailing the waters of the Northeast United States, the Canadian Maritime
Providences, the Azores, the South Pacific and the Caribbean along with racing
to Bermuda (where he generally came in last except for one year when F. E.
Bailey—the famous attorney—beat him out for the last place spot). As he
briefly recalls these other adventures (it appears he covered them in more
detail in his other sailing books), Buckley tells about the selection of the
crew and the development of an itinerary for his Pacific crossing. In
creating this story, he borrows liberally from the letters that were exchanged
between the various members of his crew.

The second part of the
book focuses on the journey itself. The
trip is taken aboard the Sealistial, a boat Buckley had sailed in the Galapagos
Islands and around Tahiti. It is a rather large boat (72 feet) but when
you have seven passengers (Buckley, his son and five others) plus a crew of
five, large is relative. They begin their journey in Hawaii and ended off
New Guinea. In this part of the book, Buckley liberally (I love using
this term when referring to Buckley) borrows from the journals of his fellow
shipmates. One of the conditions of their passage is that they will keep
a personal journal and, at the end of the trip, give them to Buckley so he can
use them in his planned book.

Each crew member is
given position aboard the boat. Daniel Merritt is the procurement
officer, Reginald Stoops the safety officer, Van Galbraith the meteorological
officer and diplomatic advance man, Dick Clurman the Communication officer,
Christopher (Christo) Buckley the entertainment officer. The younger
Buckley supplies the boat with enough candy for a round-the-world voyage, a
portable ping pong table (that's given to natives on an island along the way),
movies for every evening, books, tapes of David Niven reading his memoirs
(which were listened to every evening for 20 minutes), board games, a rifle for
the member assigned "shark duty" while the rest swim and a 410
shotgun along with a case of clay pigeons, along with a model to assemble of the
Titanic. (320) The boat has a large musical selection, which does not
live up to Buckley's standard: “one part rock, one part schmaltz.” (124)
Buckley (he refers to himself as WEB throughout the book) was the
navigation officer and also oversaw the important task of stowing away cases of
wine (32 cases of various vintage). Obviously spirits were necessary for
morale as there was another 50 cases of beer. (116) On top of it all was
the attractive chef, who could have been plying her knives and sauté pans at
some five star restaurant in New York, but had agreed to work in the galley to
assure that no one went hungry. With the exception of Chef Liz and an
accident of the first mate (who almost lost fingers on the first day), the crew
are mostly ignored within the book. At one point, they tried to arrange
the movie time so the crew could watch it, but it is a failure due to
"Abstract planning, welfare-state-style." (390) The book is mostly
without political rants, but at some points WEB can't help but to cleverly throw
in his two-cent worth.

One of the interesting
elements of the book is navigation. Buckley spends a number of pages
talking about the LORAN system and a bit (I wish he had written more) about
celestial navigation. Due to his contacts (another example of why he
wasn't in league with the average sailor), the boat is equipped with an early
GPS prototype. He discusses the possibilities of this system as more
satellites are placed into orbit. In the early 80s, the device could only
be used at certain times of the day when satellites were within range.
The other interesting part of the book is the routine developed between
the passengers as they go on and off watch and joke with one another.
There is always a bonding that comes from long periods of time in tight
quarters. For WEB, shipboard life also included three of them gathering each
week to recite the "Latin mass." (211)

The title, Racing Through Paradise, is appropriate
as they have little time to sit back and enjoy the trip for Ambassador
Galbraith has to get back to France for his retirement party (which will
include the Vice President). Only limited amounts of time are spent on
the islands in which they refuel and take on fresh water. I was
disappointed the WEB didn't provide more detail into life on the islands.
The one island that seemed to get more than its share is Johnston atoll. Most
sailors wouldn't be allowed near this military controlled island upon which is
stored lots of gas for chemical warfare. By pulling strings, Buckley
stops and seems to take affront at the commander's lack of hospitality.
He is provided water, fuel and ice, but told not to let the sun set on
his sails. Even having an ambassador on board didn't help. Another
example of WEB's self importance was his telling of going to a White House
function. His excitement didn't come from meeting the President (by his
own admission, he'd met plenty of them), but from meeting the Chief of
Protocol, who was also the recent captain that had won the America's Cup.
(242)

Of course, even the
rich have those to be envious of and in WEB's case, this was William Simon,
President Reagan's economic adviser who was having built a 124 foot sailboat, “The
Freedom” was being built at an Italian shipyard. (204-206) Buy American
never came up within the text as there was plenty of wine for other countries
as well as Swedish cookies and other stuff.

I would only recommend
this book if you really like sailing and if you are interested in the changes
of navigation over the past couple of decades. Now that I reviewed it, I’ve
left the book at my parents for my youngest brother who seemed enamored with
all things conservative.

He was an oilman's son. I believe they have an odd dualism in outlook being in essence conservative and gamblers on a grand scale. I believe that template suits that other industry that came about around 1900 too, film. But their great problem is to translate their personal stance into a coherent political belief. I expect this fellow would have a gra for Ayn Rand particular philosophies (if you can call them that). I don't think I'll be reading Buckley any time soon. Mind you I'm a bit stumped how an Irish Catholic managed to get himself elected to the office of sheriff in Duval Co. Texas in the 1880s.Where are you planning to deploy celestial navigation ?.

Know oil men, alright ... aam married to one ... so many issues ... enviromental that is ... omg, am I ever lying now ... hi north and oil does not go well with money and drugs and seeking for happiness ... in -30C below ...

Sage: This is a fine review, but I know little about the late William F. Buckley. Yes, I've seen him on PBS and he struck me as a scholarly intellectual who talked above most people--unless they were academics. That's the extent of my knowledge of the man. Wishing you a Happy New Year and I look forward to more of your reviews in 2014!

Musings

This blog contains observations on life and nature written by Sage, satire and parody written by Nevada Jack, and an occasional book review or poem. As a general rule, the author of the blog doesn't write about his work or his family. Email at sagecoveredhills [at] gmail.com